After six-decade separation, sisters meet for first time

Tuesday

Jun 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 30, 2009 at 7:02 PM

Sixty-five years ago, when she was 14, resident Betty (Roberson) Beir was put on a Greyhound Bus at her home in Texas and sent to San Francisco to live with her mother and stepfather, leaving behind half-siblings and half-siblings-to-be on her father’s side that she would never see again or hear from over six decades.

Richard Kerns

Sixty-five years ago, when she was 14, Keyser resident Betty (Roberson) Beir was put on a Greyhound Bus at her home in Texas and sent to San Francisco to live with her mother and stepfather, leaving behind half-siblings and half-siblings-to-be on her father’s side that she would never see again or hear from over six decades.

To the half-dozen children left back in Texas, Betty would become a nameless phantom. They heard stories of an older half-sister with flaming red hair who had become a model in New York, but that was as far from the truth as Betty was from her relatives in Texas.

In reality, Betty had gotten a job as a telephone operator in California and lived with her mother and stepfather until she was old enough to strike out on her own. She met a soldier during World War II, who married her and brought her to his home in Pennsylvania.

Over the long years of making her own life and raising a family, however, Betty never forgot the family she left behind in Texas, the loved ones from whom she was torn, without even a chance to say goodbye.

“For 50 years I wondered about my brothers and sisters,” she said.

As life slowed in her senior years, wondering turned to active searching, as Betty sent countless letters to Robersons throughout the Dallas area, enclosed with a stamped envelope seeking any information about her siblings. Invariably, they came back with a “no,” if the letters were returned at all.

“I’d cry whenever I got one back,” he said. “For seven years I looked every way I could think of.”

While her sleuthing didn’t hit pay-dirt, Betty gleaned a little information here and there. About nine years ago, she and her husband took a trip to Ohio, where a man versed in genealogical searches took her information, tapped into the Internet, and within minutes was able to provide names, addresses and phone numbers. Her search was over.

Following an initial round of letters to let her siblings know who she was, followed up by phone calls, Betty and her family reunited for the first time in 2002, with family members gathering for a true reunion in Texas. While the event proved a joyful culmination to her decades of longing, Betty’s youngest sister, “Robbie” (Roberson) Cable, wasn’t able to attend that reunion.

Nevertheless, they struck up a relationship over the phone, talking two or three times a week. But with Betty unable to fly because of health reasons, and Robbie swearing off planes altogether, the two remained separated by the long miles between Texas and West Virginia, where Betty had moved to be near her daughter, the late Gloria Staggers.

That all changed last week when Robbie and her husband finally made the long trek by car, driving 15 hours to their daughter’s home in Tennessee, before tackling the final 12 hours to Keyser, and the Potomac Heights apartments where Betty lives.

“When they got out of the elevator, that was the first I saw her,” Betty said.

It was only a two-day visit, but the women got along like, well, sisters.

“It’s like we’ve known each other for life,” said Robbie, 64.

For Betty, her youngest sister’s appearance at the elevator was a dream come true, nurtured and kept alive over six long decades. “I’ve looked forward to this so long,” she said. “We’re trying to cram a lifetime into a couple of days.”

As Betty geared up for the visit, her neighbors at Potomac Heights also got into the act. One prepared lasagna for the sisters’ dinner, another baked a pie for Robbie’s husband. “They were as excited about her coming as I was,” Betty said.

Even though Robbie is now on her way back home, the two said they will treasure the visit, and stay in touch just like before. Robbie said she and her brothers and sisters are grateful their long-lost sister tracked them down. One brother, before he died, had declared himself saved as a born-again Christian, and credited Betty’s efforts in part to his newfound faith. “He said, ‘Thank you for caring enough to search for us,’” Robbie said.